


Wherever You Are (It's Never as Dark)

by Anonymous



Category: Summerland (TV)
Genre: Bradin is in college, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brother/Sister Incest, Cuddling and Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Nikki is sixteen, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Tooth Rotting Fluff, pre sibling incest really, susannah is the only one with a fucking clue, they really just miss each other a lot okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24633850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: She keeps his hoodie, a yellow one from Playa Linda High surf team, as a reminder of home. The thing is, some nights she can’t even remember what home feels like anymore, not like this, not in California where everything is always upside down and twisted and moving at the speed of light.OrThe one where Bradin is in college and they're counting down the days until he can be home again.
Relationships: Bradin Westerly/Nikki Westerly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally the most self indulgent thing i've ever written, and im not in the least bit sorry.

She keeps his hoodie, a yellow one from Playa Linda High surf team, as a reminder of home. The thing is, some nights she can’t even remember what home feels like anymore, not like this, not in California where everything is always upside down and twisted and moving at the speed of light. The stupid thing is far too big, frayed at the cuffs and the hem, but god, it still smells like sea salt and like Bradin, and sometimes, when outnumbered is all she knows how to feel, she’ll wrap herself in it like a blanket and sit stock still in the center of her bedroom floor, eyes closed, trying to find a center of gravity again. It’s not a magic talisman and it doesn’t always work, sometimes rather than calming, Nikki finds herself pacing and reeling in her room like a flight risk, a girl gone mad. Sometimes, though, that stupid thing is all it takes for her to remember all that she’d thought she’d forgotten, moms laugh and dads perpetual singing, and the way even the stars shine differently in Kansas, brighter and more welcoming than the ones over her aunts beachhouse could ever be. The truth is, she keeps his hoodie because she couldn’t keep him. She’s not an idiot, she knows it’s only college, that he hasn’t abandoned her. She could call. She does call. But there’s something so monumental about the things she feels in his absence that she doesn’t even know where to start talking about it. After all, how do you tell your big brother you need him like you need the air in your fucking lungs? That you think the only point zero you’ve ever known is hiding somewhere in the endless green of his eyes? No, its too much, too much too soon and too fucking terrifying in its inevitiblity, so she uses his hoodie like a safety net, like a security blanket, and she keeps going like this isn’t killing her.

Tonight is one of those nights, endless in its expanse and its brutality, and the fucking hoodie, god damn it, it isn’t doing shit to calm her anxiety. She’s had her shoes on for the last half hour, grabbed her bag and her keys and headed for the door six times, but its a fucking Tuesday night, a school night, and it’s a two hour drive to Bradin’s dorm room door.

She toes off her shoes and throws her body back on her bed with a sigh. There's an uneasiness in her bones, something that keeps her heart beating a mile a minute behind her ribcage, a ridiculous phantom longing that has her dialing his number and counting the seconds it takes for him to pick up with held breath.

 _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11_ … “Nik?” He answers on the third ring, and he sounds tired, tired and too goddamn far away, and all of the air in her lungs leaves her body in one big rush “Nikki? You okay?”

“Yeah” she says, suddenly exhausted. Her whole body feels like a lead weight, like there’s a hook behind her belly button threatening to pull her through the floor and into the center of the earth, maybe right to hell where she fears she belongs. “Im fine. Just miss you. How’s class?”

“Fucking endless, honestly.” He says, and the tone of his voice suddenly sounds a lot like resignation. She can hear him shuffling down the line, imagines him in cutoff sweats and an old tee and smiles despite herself. “Studying for an organic chem exam, and I feel like my brain is going to explode. How's home?”

“Home's fine. Everyone’s fine.” She offers, but it feels flat, wrong to her own ears. She wants to tell him it's lonely.

“You don’t sound fine.” He says, and it’s all Bradin, no nonsense, no frills, no bullshit. It’s just exactly what she needs.

“I’m….I don’t know” She concedes, trying on words in her head for effect before she says them. “Feel off I guess. It’s weird without you here. You’d think i’d be used to it, it’s been ages, but then here I am, calling you at eleven pm instead of getting ready for bed.”

“Know the feeling, Nik. I fucking miss you too.” he says, and there’s something raw in the tone of his voice, something unguarded and real that knocks the wind out of her.

“Who’s idea was this college thing anyway?” She asks, rolling on her side breathing deep when the movement shakes a little of his smell out of the fabric of his hoodie.

“Yours, last I checked. You were the one who pushed this, remember?” He says, laughing. “And I’m glad you did. Never would be here without you. You know that right?”

“Yeah, I….yeah. I know. I just…” She lets her thoughts trail off, the _I need you_ that had been building on her tongue disappearing in the ether between them.

“I’ll be home next weekend, Nikki, you know that. And I’m here now. I’m right here, Lil Dawg. Always.” A breath, a pause, then a smile she can hear in his voice when he speaks again. “And I know you’re wearing my hoodie.”

“I….”

“Nikki.” he says, pointed, and she can hear the disbelief in his voice from here.

“Fine” She relents, laughing despite herself, despite the weight of sadness sitting square in the center of her chest. “I’m wearing your stupid hoodie. Happy?”

“I’d be happier if I were home.” Is all he gives her, and it’s enough to sober her completely, to set her bones to rattling again with separation anxiety and her teeth to chatter with phantom cold.

“Ten more days right?”

“Ten days, two exams, and a research paper on cellular biology. It may as well be ten years.” Bradin counters. “I need sleep like I need oxygen.”

 _I need you._ Nikki thinks again. _I need you I need you I need you._ What she actually says is “Go. Get some rest. What time is your exam?”

“Not until 9:45. Thank God.” He offers around a yawn. “Gonna study a little more in the morning though before class.”

“You’re gonna kill it, Bradin. I know you will.” She says. “Now go, get some sleep. Call me after class? Tell me how it went?”

“Yeah. I will. Goodnight, Nik. And chill out, would you? I can hear you overthinking from here.”

“Bite me, Bradin.” she offers, then lower, softer. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“Love you too. Goodnight.”

Then he’s gone again, the line gone heavy with the weight of silence still ringing in her ear. It isn’t much. Not much at all, but there’s a glow in her chest from the sound of his voice that sends warmth to the tips of her toes, wards off the frostbite that’d threatened to take over her heart.

Ten days. Just ten more days. She can do it.

Until then, she’ll wear his hoodie to remind her of home.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, uh, hi. I definitely didn't expect anyone to be reading this, but I'm glad you are!

Nikki’s phone buzzes thirty-five minutes into her Calc class, effectively shaking her out of the daydream she’d been having about being literally anywhere but Playa Linda High.

It’s Bradin, it has to be, and she all but flings herself straight on the floor in her haste to get out of class so she can answer it.

“Ms. Westerly, what is so important that you can’t raise your hand and wait to be excused?” Her teacher, Mr. Bronner asks as she’s halfway across the room. She turns on her heel and does her best to look ill, the anxiety to answer her phone that's like acid bubbling in the pit of her stomach probably helps her acting skills, and he has the decency to look pitious.

“I feel sick, really…..really…” She sways a little for effect, clasping her hand over her mouth and full tilt running for the classroom door, not bothering to shut it, and not stopping until she’s safely locked in a bathroom stall.

Her stomach falls to her feet as soon as she unlocks her phone. It’s Bradin, but it’s just a text. He hadn’t bothered to call after all.

_Made it through the fucking exam. Got a 92. Now I think I need to sleep for a week._

She smiles despite her disappointment, and types a reply. She knows her brother, if he’s out of class his response will be almost immediate, unless he actually fell asleep somewhere.

**Didn’t I tell you to call me? Don’t tell me you lost the definition of calling somewhere in that big med school brain of yours?**

She’s right, his answer comes back almost before she has time to unlock the stall and perch herself on the farthest bathroom sink.

_I didn’t forget how to call, Nikki. Just like I didn’t forget you’re supposed to be in class right now. What? Calc? Stop hiding in the fucking bathroom and go back to class._

**It’s either hide out in here or fall asleep at my desk and have Cameron throw erasers at the back of my head to wake me up. Sorry for picking the better option.**

He doesn’t text back, rather, her phone starts ringing in her hand, and she’s half laughing as she answers it despite herself, her heart lighter than it’s been in days.

“Who would’ve thought I’d be the one actually studying in this family, huh?” He says, not missing a beat, and not bothering to say hello.

“Listen, mister, I study plenty. It’s not my fault that my teacher has the most flat affect on planet earth. He’d put anyone to sleep. And who cares about math anyway?”

“People who want to be valedictorian…..so….you.” Bradin answers, and she can hear a rumble of voices in the background. She pictures him walking across the quad, passing this laughing group and that, and something in her stomach twists painfully at the fact that he’s on the phone with his little sister instead of joining them.

“What are you doing? Sounds loud.” She says, half sighing in disappointment.

“In the caf. I’m starving. Hang on a sec, kay?” He says, and now that she listens harder, she can hear it, the distinct sounds of a cafeteria behind him. Ice falling from the soda machine, silverware clinking, the sound of something sizzling on a grill, and the picture in her mind changes. She sees him now as he most likely actually is, harried and hungry and purple beneath the eyes.

“Kay.” She counts again in her mind, a habit she’d picked up in the months after her parents died to fill the empty spaces and long silences she didn’t know how to handle.

“Okay, hey, sorry. I just. Couldn’t talk and get my food, so I shoved my phone in my pocket and tried to hurry.”

“Oh, so that’s what that deafening scraping noise was.” She deadpans, knowing full well she hadn’t heard a thing. “The inside of your pocket. Great acoustics in there.”

“Shut up before I hang up, brat.” He says, but she can hear the way he’s not serious in the playful cadences of his voice.

“You’re awful Bradin Westerly, absolutely horrid. I don’t know why I put up with you.” She says, swinging her feet and smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. She checks her watch. It’s been ten minutes already, she’s going to have to go back to class soon or risk someone, probably Amber, coming to find her and actually having to leave for the day.

“You love me. We both know it. And we both know you need to get back to class.” He says, suddenly all business.

“Would you like stop reading my damn mind, Bradin, it’s really fucking creepy.” She says with a huff that’s 99% disappointment and 1% actual annoyance.

“Yeah, yeah, just know you better than anyone, don’t I?” He says around a mouthful of food, and she wrinkles her nose at the muffled, wet way it sounds down the line.

“Ew, okay, swallow your food before you talk, you neanderthal. Mama taught you better. I don’t _want_ to go back to class.”

“If I promise to call you later will you attempt to drag ass through the rest of the day?” He asks, a genuine concern coloring the tone of his voice that makes her eyes prick.

“Ugh, fine. I guess. If I must. But you better actually call me.” Nikki warns, voice stern.

“I _will_ Nik.” He insists. “What time are you done today?”

“5:30. I have lit mag, then have to drive home.” She says, suddenly, inexplicably tired.

“Then Aunt Ava will be harping about dinner, so I’ll call you around seven. I hope I can take a nap before then, I’m about to drop.”

“What did I tell you last night about getting some rest? God, it’s like you’ve forgotten how to take care of yourself already.”

“Yes mom, I hear you.” He says, and she can all but hear the roll of his eyes. “Now go to class. I’ll call you later.”

“Fine, I’m going.” She relents, hopping off the sink and adding as an afterthought “Get some damn sleep, and congrats on your test!”

\-----

Lit mag drags, like, every tick of the clock seems like an eternity, capital D drags. She and Cameron spend the better part of an hour and a half pawing through submissions, all of which seem to be varying degrees of awful, and at five pm on the dot Nikki throws her hands up in defeat.

“I can’t read another one of these today, I swear, if you make me I’m going to scream.” She huffs, gesturing wildly to the pile of papers strewn between them. “I mean, come on, does no one in this school have even the slightest grasp on the english language?”

“You mean besides you?” Cameron quips, eyebrow raised. He’s smiling though, a tiny thing that rolls right into laughter as she glares.

“Bite me, Bale.” Nikki says, picking up the nearest pencil and flinging it at his face. “I was actually including you in the list of people who do, thank you, I wouldn’t have made you my assistant otherwise.”

“Oh _your assistant_ am I? Well, excuse me Ms. _Editor in Chief_ for speaking out of line.” Cameron says, still laughing as he wraps her up in his arms and pulls her close. “We could spend the next half hour making out instead. I mean, it’s gotta be more productive than this anyway right?”

She kisses him, a brief, warm little thing like the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, then starts gathering up papers and putting them back in her bag.

“Or we could just ditch out early.” She says, pausing only when she sees his face, for just a second, fall. “Sorry Cam, I’m sorry. I love you. You know I love you. I just….I’m exhausted, and we’ve got calc homework, and dinner, and Bradin’s gonna call and…”

He cuts her off, smile already hitched back in place. “Hey, no, hey, it’s all good. I understand. I take rain checks.” Something in the center of her chest feels a little like a rubber band pulled too tight at that, his face is so open and genuine and _god_ what is wrong with her? She doesn’t stop to dissect it though, fears she’ll fall into the abyss if she does, she just pushes it down, finishes with her bag, and grabs her keys.

“See you tomorrow?” Nikki asks, knowing it's a damn paper thin peace offering but it’s all she’s got. “I’ll bring coffee.”

“Only because you’re promising coffee. I would’ve completely skipped school to avoid you otherwise.” He says, closing his bag too and starting to stand. Nikki knows there must be something in the look on her face though, because he drops the joking manner and walks to her side, pulling her in by the wrist. “Seriously, Nik. It’s okay. Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Yeah okay.” She answers, kissing him once and then twice, and then once more, each one soft like an apology she’s not sure she knows why she’s making. “Bye, Cam. Love you. Be safe getting home.”

The whole drive back to Ava’s beach house, she fights back the tears.

\----

Bradin’s never been one for punctuality, Nikki knows that, but all through dinner she eyes the clock nonetheless, anxiety ratcheting higher the closer it gets to seven with no sign of dinner ending. Johnny is on a tangent about the plummeting housing market in Playa Linda, one that, thus far, has gone on half an hour and shows no signs of slowing down.

She bounces her knee and plays with what’s left of her mashed potatoes. It’s only 6:45, she’s got time, but the ticking of the clock seems to be connected to the amount of air she’s able to suck into her lungs. The more time that passes, the less she’s able to breathe, on and on, less and less, until she’s on the verge of a panic attack in her aunt’s dining room.

“Um, Aunt Ava? Sorry.” She says, and it's sudden and unexpected enough that Derrick, who’d started to doze by her left side, wakes with a start. The look her little brother throws her is equal parts annoyed and confused and she’d probably laugh if she could make her lungs expand properly. “Can I be excused?”

“Yeah, honey, of course.” Ava replies, looking her up and down with a concerned eye. “You don’t look so well, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just been a long day I guess. I’m gonna go to bed early I think.” Nikki says, standing up and carrying her plate to the sink. “Goodnight, guys.”

It’s tossed quickly over her shoulder as she heads for the stairs without looking back, and honestly, it's funny really, how with every step she takes upstairs it becomes easier and easier to breathe. It’s almost as if her lungs know just how dependent she’s become on the phone waiting in her backpack on her bedroom floor.

Once upstairs, she changes quickly into her pyjamas, tossing on a pair of purple plaid sleep shorts and a tank top and tying her hair in a bun. She pulls Bradin’s hoodie on over that, laughing as it falls just above her knees, and grabs her calculus homework as an afterthought. There’s no way she’s going to be able to focus enough in the next ten minutes to get anything done, but at least she can say she looked at the notes.

She checks the time on her phone at 6:55, and again at 6:57. At 6:58, she actually cracks open her textbook, but for all she can read the words on the page, it may as well be in greek. At 6:59, her hands start shaking.

His face flashes across her screen at 7:01 and she lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in one huge woosh.

It’s not a phone call. It’s an incoming text. Again. She’s gonna kill him, she’s going to teleport to his dorm and she’s going to kill him, brutally and without remorse.

_Fuck the phone. Get your laptop. Skype?_

Shit. She isn’t prepared for the way her heart lurches upward like a rocket, doesn’t know quite how to breathe with it stuck in her throat, but she grabs her laptop without a single moment's hesitation anyway. Nikki knows he’s going to make fun of her the second he catches a glimpse of his yellow hoodie, but at the moment, she doesn’t care because she’s one press of a button from actually seeing his face for the first time in weeks.

She texts him back to tell him she’s ready, chipping away at the pink nail polish on her left thumb as she waits. Then the call actually comes, and damn if the sight of him isn’t the best thing she’s ever seen.

“Are you allergic to phone calls or just to direction?” She asks, by way of saying hello.

“Well, hey to you too.” He says, and his eyes dance in the light from his desk lamp as he does, clear green and, just as she’d imagined earlier, ringed in dark purple shadows. “Remind me not to ever surprise you with my face ever again.”

“No, you just. Never do what I’m expecting you to, do you?” She asks, shoving her laptop off of her lap so she can sprawl on her side and cradle her head in her hand. “You look like shit, by the way.”

It’s a lie, it’s a bold faced blatant lie, and she knows it. Even as haggard as he looks, he’s beautiful. His dark gray t-shirt is stark against his skin tone, lighter now as he spends more time in the library than on the water, and as he leans back against his pillows and pulls a face at her, she literally physically aches to have him closer.

“Says you. You look about as tired as I feel, Little Dawg, are you sleeping?” He asks, and just like it had earlier, the concern in his voice cuts like a knife, leaves all the places left raw from missing him flayed wide open again.

“Yes, Bradin, I’m fine. Told you last night, didn’t I? There’s just a lot of empty space around here these days.” She says, sighing, as the reality of her words hits her. Jay had moved out almost as soon as he found out he was going to be a father, and Susannah is out of the country more often than not these days. She loves her Aunt Ava and Johnny, she does, but it’s a big house for just the four of them, empty and echoing in ways that make her wonder if maybe the house isn’t the only hollow thing around here.

“I know. Jay still in Australia?” Bradin questions with a raised brow.

“Yeah.” She says, running her thumb over the corner of her Calculus textbook with enough pressure that it hurts. “Won't be home for another few weeks, says the missus and the kids love it there. He’s ecstatic. He’s teaching his toddler to surf, if his emails are anything to go by.”

“Of course he is, he’s insane.” Bradin laughs, and it sends warmth spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her toes. He sounds exactly like safety and home, and in that moment, there’s nothing in the world she wouldn’t give to be able to crawl through her screen and into his arms.

“So exactly how much work are you ignoring right now to be talking to me?” Nikki asks, suddenly guilty again about monopolizing her brother’s time. He just bites his lip and sighs, glancing off camera to what she knows is a massive pile of books waiting on his desk.

“You don’t wanna know.” He says, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers and then rubbing his eyes. “Want to get it all done before I come home though. Unless you’d rather me waste the whole weekend trying to memorize latin prefixes and nerve groups.”

“Oh no, no no no.” She says, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. “There will be none of that. Just movies and ice cream and sleep. Lots of sleep. You clearly need it.”

“Yeah well,” Bradin says, forgoing his attempts at argument as he heaves a huge yawn. “Just as long as you promise you’ll stop wearing my old clothes before I get there.”

“Oh fuck _off_ , Bradin.” She says, and she’d throw something at the half fuzzy image of his face smirking on her laptop if she thought it’d have any effect. “You specifically let me keep the stupid thing knowing i’d wear it, so shut up, you idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah. If you say so. I’m not convinced you didn’t just steal it from me without my knowing, but whatever. The real question is, how much homework are you avoiding tonight?”

“Uh...plead the fifth?” She answers, angling her camera so she’s showing him the school stuff spread out on her bed. “But look, I kinda have my books open does that count?” She asks, hopeful.

“Oh yeah, absolutely, wonderful job. What, exactly, are you learning from the copyright information on the front cover of that calc book again? I must’ve missed it.”

“God, you’re such an ass.” Nikki counters, rolling her eyes. She does actually bother to turn to the right page though, opening her notebook to check the problem set she should be working on before speaking again. “Did you get your nap earlier?”

He yawns again, running a hand through his hair and reaching for a smile that honestly, when on, just looks exhausted. “Yeah, I did, believe it or not. A few hours. Which is probably all I’ll get tonight. I have a second exam day after tomorrow I need to study for and I have to draft that bio paper by Friday.”

“Jesus, Bray.” Nikki says, wincing at the sound of it. “Do you need to go?”

“Probably.” He concedes, but when he catches her eye, it’s enough to make her stomach flip. It’s raw and vulnerable, and for a second, Nikki lets herself believe that she's not alone in wishing she could crawl through the screen. “But I don’t want to. I hate that I can never talk very long these days.”

“I don’t want you to either.” She says, letting just a little bit of the separation anxiety seep into her voice. It’s not enough to send him into panic mode, but she knows that he hears it, can tell by the way he starts fiddling with something just out of frame.

“Nikki….”

“It’s only nine days right?” She asks, and this time, any positivity she injects into her voice is just for show.

“Nine days.” He confirms, and it's off in his voice somehow too, pregnant with something she can’t figure out or put a name to. “Think we can do it?”

“Well, from where I’m sitting bro, we don’t have a choice.”

\---

It’s only later that night as she lies half asleep in bed, the number nine flitting in and out of the edges of her consciousness like a rather relentless mosquito, that she remembers she had more than just calculus homework due tomorrow. She doesn’t bother to get up though, and less than five minutes later she’s drifting, slipping headfirst into a dream that she won't remember in the morning. It begins and ends with Bradin.


	3. Chapter 3

Thursday morning arrives like a freight train slamming through the walls of Nikki’s consciousness. She’s vaguely aware that she’d been dreaming, but for the life of her, she can’t recall a single detail, and by the time she’s actually up and dressed, she’s feeling both unsettled and vaguely annoyed at the entire world for having the nerve to exist at all. 

It’s only halfway down the hall towards her first period that she remembers she’d promised Cam coffee, and it’s only because she literally runs headlong into him that she remembers it then. 

Fuck. Just, fucking _fuck_ today, she thinks, swearing under her breath before Cameron can get a word in edgewise. 

“You good, Nik?” He asks, clearly concerned despite his attempt at a joking tone. “You look…..really pissed off actually.” 

“No, I’m not. At all. I forgot the coffee like a complete idiot and-” she’s cut off by the way he pulls her tight against his chest, effectively turning anything else she had to say into mumbled drivel delivered right to the fabric of his t-shirt. 

Fuck that too. Annoyance buzzes beneath her skin like a hive of angry bees, and she’d shove him off of her and storm away if she didn’t _know_ it’d make things infinitely worse. 

“Nikki, I don’t give a shit about the coffee, you know that. What-” Cameron says, pulling back and searching her eyes for answers he isn’t gonna find. “The hell is going on? You’re kinda freaking me out right now.” 

“I don’t know, Cam.” She says with a sigh, and honestly, it’s a lot like a balloon popping, all her fucking annoyance just gone on a breath of air, leaving her deflated and exhausted instead. “Just...not a good morning? I woke up in a weird headspace and I can’t shake it. Then I forgot the coffee and I _promised_ you coffee.” 

She can't explain it, the way she’s felt like she’s been perched on a powder keg holding a lit match for weeks. It’s the fucking separation anxiety mostly, the way every scrap of interaction she’s gotten with Bradin over the past month has made it better and worse all at the same time, his voice or his texts a soothing balm in the moment that makes her ache all the more the second he’s gone. But it’s more than that and Nikki knows it. She feels guilty. Guilty for monopolizing Bradin’s time, guilty for the tiny hurt expression she sometimes catches on Cameron’s face when he thinks she isn’t looking, guilty, guilty, guilty. For everything and for nothing, and it’s too fucking much for her to deal with. All of it, everything she’s feeling inside, from the things that she can name to the ones still too fucking scary, it’s eating her alive. 

“Nik, calm down.” Cameron soothes, running his thumb down and along the inside of her wrist. “You know I was just joking yesterday right, I really don't, the coffee. It’s. I don’t even care?” 

Forcing herself to relax in tiny increments, she hitches a smile on she comes nowhere near actually feeling, and meets his eyes. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” She shrugs, pretending to brush off the thousand pound weight that’s settled solid around her shoulders. “I’ll be okay. Just need to get through the day, I think.” 

“At least Calc, right?” Cameron offers, and the easy, fluid, laughing way he says it makes her stomach twist in painful knots. 

“Yeah, Calc. Calc is stupid.” She agrees on autopilot, letting him lead her down the hall as the warning bell rings.

\---  
It turns out Math was a total lost cause. So was AP English, and Bio, and every attempt at conversation with her friends in between. Nikki floats through them all like a ghost, a girl half alive, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t scare her a little, the almost complete disconnect between her functioning body and her still spiraling thoughts. It isn’t until lunch that something gives, shifts the heavy weight of her heart just enough that she can finally draw a full fucking breath. 

It’s a stupid text. Of course it is. Because her whole life is just a series of micro conversations these days anyway, right?

_Eight Days. Thank Fucking God. I was officially kicked out of my dorm last night by my perpetually horny roommate and his gf. Fell asleep on my laptop in the library. :(_

Bradin. God, _Bradin_. It’s crazy how it happens, pathetic really. Like flipping a switch, suddenly she’s a livewire, feeling everything to the tips of her toes. She takes another bite of her pizza, actually tasting it this time, and texts back. 

**_Ew. Tell the rabbits to get a DIFFERENT room. Also thanks, I needed the reminder today. :)_ **

It’s the tiniest gesture, one that probably took two seconds of his time, but it’s enough. 

It changes everything. 

\----

It gets easier after that. 

On Friday, she snaps a picture of the last seven fruit loop rings swimming in her cereal bowl and sends it off to Bradin with a smirk, a thing that makes both Johnny and Derrick look at her like she’s grown a second head from across the kitchen island. Nikki just shrugs it off, downs the rest of her breakfast, and heads for the door, dropping a kiss on Aunt Ava’s cheek as she passes her on the way out. 

By the time she gets out of her car in the school parking lot, Bradin has responded. He’s sent a picture back, he looks half asleep, still in bed, all wild too long hair and rolled eyes, but he’s smiling. It’s an honest to goodness, genuine thing, bright as the sun, and it almost breaks her heart. When he follows his picture up with a simple recreation of a fast forward button, Nikki has the feeling that this is going to become a thing. 

She’s right. 

\----

At just past nine am on Saturday morning the ringing of her phone wakes Nikki from a dead sleep. She cracks one eye and, seeing Amber’s name on her caller id, almost rolls right over and goes back to bed. Almost. The thing with Amber is she’s relentless. Nikki knows good and well if she doesn’t answer the fucking phone Amber will call again and again until she does, Nikki’s sleep and sanity be damned. 

“What?” She half yells into her phone, and honestly, it comes out so much more like a sleep worn rasp than the angry bark she was going for that Nikki would laugh at herself if it weren’t for the principle of the thing. 

“Jesus, Westerly. Was that supposed to _scare me?_ Honestly, it’s like being yelled at by Snow White.” Amber says, deadpan and Nikki would punch her if she could, she swears she would. 

“Go away Amber. What do you _want_ anyway, I was sleeping. Soundly. For the first time in weeks.” 

“Well too bad, Bitch. Get up. Cam and I have decided that we’re going for smoothies and a movie, and you, the single most sulky person we know, are not excused.” 

“I hate both of you.” Nikki says, finally gathering the energy to roll up on one elbow and open both eyes. “So much. And I know you’re on the line, Bale, I can hear you snickering from here.” 

“Aw, Amber, see? I told you. She’s no fun lately. We’ve definitely got to fix that.” That’s Cameron’s voice for sure, but it’s far away, as if he’s on speakerphone and yelling from another room. 

“Are you two together right now? At nine am? God what is _wrong_ with you?” Nikki asks, not surprised in the slightest that Cam and Amber have already met up. They have a weird relationship for sure, some odd version of the three musketeers that she wouldn't trade for the world and it, more often than not, means that at least two of them can be counted on to be together at any given moment. 

“You know, I distinctly remember a time when Nikki Westerly wouldn’t sleep past seven am, Saturday or not.” Cam says, and Nikki can hear it, the tiniest hint of worry beneath the dig, and she hates herself for putting it there. 

“Yeah well, that girl was still conditioned to life on a farm in Kansas, Cameron. 5 am every morning or mama threw a fit. This girl is just _tired._ ” She offers, surprised at the ridiculous amount of truth in it. She is tired. Exhausted honestly, bone deep weary, and she’s not entirely sure she’ll ever be able to fully explain to anyone why. 

“Ugh, whatever.” Comes Amber's voice, and Nikki can all but hear her rolling her eyes. “Just get up and get ready would you? Meet us at the promenade in an hour or I _will_ come drag your sorry ass out of bed myself.” 

“Screw--” The click of Amber hanging up the phone cuts her retort right in half, and sighing, she lets the rest float out into her empty room as she throws off the covers. “You.” 

\----

It’s as she’s putting on her second coat of mascara that her phone buzzes again from the vanity beside her blush. 

It’s a picture of six textbooks and a cup of coffee that Bradin swiftly follows with the words _send help._

She quickly types out a response and glances at her watch. She’s running late. Again. Oh well. Cam and Amber can wait. Serves them right for waking her up in the first place.

**_Can’t, sorry. Being dragged off to socialize by the assholes formerly known as my best friends._ **

_Tell Amber and Cameron to fuck off. I’ll come fight them?_

**_And miss all that fun with those textbooks? I don’t think so. Guess I’ll just suffer through it._ **

_Have fun :P_

**_Yeah, yeah. Good luck studying <3 _ **

He goes quiet after that, and it’s only as she’s arriving at the promenade that she realizes she’d been straining her ears the whole way there, hoping to hear the ding of just one more incoming text to get her through the whole ordeal. 

\----

Sunday is a lazy day, spent reading and drinking tea sprawled across the window seat in her room, but by midafternoon Nikki loses her focus, unable to keep reading through the mess of thoughts surrounding Bradin in her head, and the perpetual ache in her chest that follows. 

So she picks out and snaps a picture of five nail polish bottles, all in a line, and asks his opinion. 

**_Which one? Be very careful with your answer._ **

By the time he answers, it’s past dinner, and her nails have long been painted. 

_Sorry, Nik. In the trenches here. Professor added a last minute quiz this week and I'm already over my head scrambling to get this shit done._

Then a beat, a pause, and another message. 

_Oh and Purple is the answer. ;)_

She looks down at the nails that she’d painted with purple glitter hours ago, and she smiles despite herself. 

\----

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all blur together in Nikki’s mind, smears of color and sound and class after class after never ending class that Nikki is only able to keep separate because of the morning texts with Bradin. 

He sends her four words of his research paper on Monday, all of them from the title with a frown and, she’s sure if she were there in person, a sigh. 

She sends him a snapshot of three perfectly round golden pancakes, courtesy of Aunt Ava’s recent cooking classes on Tuesday, and gets a _Not fair. All I’ve had is cereal from the caf._ in return. It’s a response that sends her to the store after school, buying the ingredients to make him Mom’s blueberry muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning. 

On Wednesday, she gets a snapshot of two rolled green eyes, along with a rant about being kept awake by his roommate yet again the night before, this time, by crazy fairy music blaring from the idiot’s video games at 3 am. 

4, 3, 2…. 

They’re getting through it. 

\----

On Thursday at the breakfast table, Aunt Ava drops a bomb that seems to detonate over and over again in the pit of Nikki’s stomach until she actually feels sick with a twisted dark kind of selfish longing she can’t quite put a proper name to. 

“So I was thinking, since Bradin’s coming home tomorrow, we’d have a family dinner. You know. All of us. Jay called earlier in the week, they’re cutting the trip early. Isabel wasn’t feeling well, Jay thinks she’s pregnant again, and Susannah, she can make it too, and well, when was the last time we all got to have a night together?” Ava says, rolling right into silence with a delayed clap of her hands and looking around the table at first Johnny, then Derrick, and lastly at Nikki. 

“Well,” Johnny says, dropping a hand on Derricks' shrugged shoulders and giving him a squeeze. “I for one think it’s a great idea. It’s about time there was a little chaos in this house again.” 

“I-” Nikki says, playing with her fork and squirming just slightly under her aunt's hopeful gaze. “-yeah. Sure.” She relents, feeling her stomach fall to somewhere around her toes. “That sounds perfect. I’ll tell Bradin?” 

“That would be perfect, Nikki, thank you. God knows you talk to him more than we do. See what time he thinks he’ll make it home, so we can let everyone else know?”

“Yeah sure, definitely.” She says, already pulling out her phone. It feels like her heart weighs a thousand pounds in the center of her chest as she types her message, and suddenly, all she wants to do is forget the whole day and go back upstairs to cry. 

_**Bad news. Aunt Ava is dead set on having an entire soiree in honor of you coming home. Family dinner. With everyone, including Susannah, Jay, Isabel and the kids. I hate this. I hate this so damn much.** _

Bradin is quick to respond as usual, and as usual, it makes Nikki feel just a little lighter where she’s sat. 

_Typical Aunt Ava. Always making a fuss over nothing. But hey, it’s just dinner, she’ll get it out of her system and then leave us alone the rest of the weekend._

_**You think?** _

_I do. And if she doesn’t, I’ll pay Derrick to distract her. It’s gonna be fine, Nikki. Promise._

“Is that Bradin?” Ava asks, pulling Nikki out of her phone and back to the world around her. “Did he say what time he’ll be home?” 

“I haven’t asked yet, hold on.” Nikki responds, going back to her texts with a long suffering sigh that she doesn’t bother to hide. 

_**Fine. I trust you. Don't make me regret it. She wants to know what time you’ll be home?** _

_Last class ends at 2:30 then it’s a two hour drive, so sometime around 4:30, maybe later, depending on rather or not I get stuck in fucking rush hour traffic._

_**Oh ew, I didn’t think about that. Fingers crossed.** _

_Cross your toes too while you’re at it, I really don’t want to deal with that. Also, I know it isn’t my day but..._

He sends a picture, it’s of one packed bag by the door, and she feels her eyes prick with tears at the sight of it. Shaking her head and swallowing hard to keep from crying in front of her family, she picks up her plate and carries it to the sink. She focuses on the motion of her hands washing her breakfast plate, the way the water swirls in soapy spirals down the drain, and counts until she’s sure she’s got her emotions controlled enough to speak. 

“He said he’ll be home around four-thirty, depending on traffic.” 

\----

When she texts him back it’s thirty minutes and one Aunt Ava ramble later, just as she’s throwing her bag over her shoulder and heading for the door. Honestly, Nikki means to scold him for taking over her day, she really does. Truly. But all that she manages to send him is the god's honest, naked truth instead. 

_**I love you. Hurry up and get your ass here, yeah? I’m losing my mind.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudos make my day <3


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